din' tryin'. This is my gold, an'
I'm goin' to handle it. If enny one tries to swizzle me out of it I'm
goin' to swizzle back, an' you can lay to that. Not forgettin' them that
stands by me."

Between Lund and Simms there existed a sort of armed truce. No open
reference was made to the desertion of Lund on the floe. But Rainey knew
that it rankled in Lund's mind. The five, Peggy Simms, her father,
Carlsen, Lund and Rainey, ostensibly messed together, but Rainey's
duties generally kept him on deck until Carlsen had sufficiently
completed his own meal to relieve him. By that time the girl and the
captain had left the table.

Lund invariably waited for Rainey. Tamada kept the food hot for them.
And served them, Lund making good play with spoon or fork and a piece of
bread, the Japanese cutting up his viands conveniently beforehand.

To Rainey, Tamada seemed the hardest worked man aboard ship. He had
three messes to cook and he was busy from morning until night,
efficient, tireless and even-tempered. The crew, though they
acknowledged his skill, were Californians, either by birth or adoption,
and the racial prejudice against the Japanese was apparent.

A week of good wind was followed by dirty weather. The _Karluk_ proved a
good fighter, though her headway was materially lessened by contrary
wind and sea, and the persistence and increasing opposition of the storm
seemed to have a corresponding effect upon Captain Simms.

He grew daily more irritable and morose, even to his daughter. Only the
doctor appeared able to get along with him on easy terms, and Rainey
noticed that, to Carlsen, the skipper seemed conciliatory even to
deference.

Peggy Simms watched her father with worried eyes. The curious, tarnished
look of his tanned skin grew until the flesh seemed continually dry and
of an earthy color; his lips peeled, and more than once he shook as if
with a chill.

On the eleventh day out, Rainey went below in the middle of the
afternoon for his sea-boots. The gale had suddenly strengthened and,
under reefs, the _Karluk_ heeled far over until the hissing seas flooded
the scuppers and creamed even with the lee rail. In the main cabin he
found Simms seated in a chair with his daughter leaning over him,
speaking to her in a harsh, complaining voice.

"No, you can't do a thing for me," he was saying. "It's this sciatica.
I've got to get Carlsen."

As Rainey passed through to his own little stateroom neither of them
not